pain,
So may we find our childhood’s calm, delicious dawn again. 
Sweet are your eyes, O little ones, that look with smiling grace,
Without a shade of doubt or fear into the Future’s face! 
Sing, sing in happy chorus, with joyful voices tell
That death is life, and God is good, and all things shall be well;
That bitter days shall cease
In warmth and light and peace,—­
That Winter yields to Spring,—­

                          Sing, little children, sing!

[Illustration:  “HE SAT DOWN ON THE STEP, BREATHLESS WITH SURPRISE AND JOY”]

=THE GENERAL’S EASTER BOX=

BY TEMPLE BAILEY

The General did not look at all as one would expect a general to look.  He was short and thick-set and had a red face and a white mustache, and he usually dressed in a gray tweed suit, with a funny Norfolk jacket with a belt, and wore a soft cap pulled down almost to his eye-glasses.

And he always did his own marketing.

That is how he came to know Jimmy.

Jimmy stood at a corner of Old Market and sold little bundles of dried sage and sweet marjoram, and sassafras and cinnamon, and soup-bunches made of bits of vegetables tied together—­a bit of parsley and a bit of celery and a bit of carrot and a sprig of summer savory, all for one cent.  Then at Christmas-time he displayed wreaths, which he and his little mother made at home, and as the spring came on he brought wild flowers that he picked in the woods.

And that was how he came to know the General.

For one morning, just before Easter, the General came puffing down the outside aisle of Old Market, with his colored man behind him with an enormous basket.  The General’s carriage was drawn up to the curbstone, and the gray horses were dancing little fancy dances over the asphalt street, when all at once Jimmy thrust a bunch of arbutus under the General’s very nose.

“Go away, go away,” said the General, and trotted down to the carriage door, which a footman held open for him.

But a whiff of fragrance had reached him, and he stopped.

“How much?” he asked.

“Three cents,” said Jimmy, in a hoarse voice.

The General looked at the little fellow through his eye-glasses.

“Got a cold?” he inquired gruffly.

“Yes, sir,” croaked Jimmy.

“Why don’t you stay in the house, then?” growled the General.

“Can’t, sir,” said Jimmy, cheerfully; “business is business.”

The General looked at the little stand where “business” was transacted—­at the little rows of dried stuffs, at the small basket of flowers, and at the soup-bunches.

“Humph,” he said.

Then his hand went down into his pocket, and he pulled out a lot of change.  After that he chose two bunches of sweet, pinky blossoms.

“Two for five, sir,” said Jimmy.

“Hum,” said the General.  “You might give me some parsley and a soup-bunch.”